More than 20 million copies of Windows Vista were sold globally in February 2007, the first month of sales since its widespread consumer release. That is significantly more than the 17 million copies of Windows XP that were sold in the first two months following its release in October 2001, Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows client group, told eWeek in an interview on March 26.
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Member since:2005-11-11
Nice link to the Computer Industry Almanac. I modded you up for that however when you imply that Vista is a monopolistic product, I don't agree. XP might have something of a monopoly, or rather, broad market acceptance, true. Vista is a decent OS but it's not required or forced at this point. If you want to buy a new PC with WinXP and not Vista, you can.
If that changes in the next 12 months to where XP is no longer widely available, I'd say Vista's main competition, WinXP, the current 'monopolistic' OS, has been unmonopolized by a better product for which hardware vendors are actually interested to write drivers. 
There IS choice out there, but it's not too widely known. Ubuntu, PC-BSD, OSX, etc etc etc
Edited 2007-03-27 04:11
Member since:2005-07-08
Windows is the only brand of OS you can get preloaded on a PC without explicitly searching for niche vendors that offer something different. At the risk of violating rule #1 of web forums, let's try an analogy: Imagine if every car dealership in America sold only Ford cars, but you could order a Toyota and have it freighted over from Japan if you really wanted, or you could custom-order a BMW from Germany for more money. The vast majority of Americans would end up driving Fords, a certain socioeconomic group would appreciate the BMW, and a small niche would endure the minor hassles to get the Toyota because it's more efficient and reliable (but not any cheaper because of the import tariffs). That's pretty much the OS situation for consumers.
Vista might not be forced (instead of XP) at all OEMs, but it is at some of them. But nobody in the unwashed masses will choose XP when Vista is available. Why would they choose an out-dated "computer" over a newer, cooler one? These people don't know DRM from ATM.
Member since:2006-09-16
Member since:
2006-03-12
Shows total PC's worldwide its about twice the number.
http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0203.htm
Also XP was launched in October so this is not really comparing like with like.
People actually bought boxed copies of Vista then.
I don't think you can actually measure the success of a Monopolistic product.